Comments on: Is Your Smoke Detector Beeping and Chirping with New Batteries?

By: jae

jae — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 04:19:28 +0000

success! but frustrating experience…I came home to chirping smoke detectors after a trip (kiddie 1450′s I think) changed out all the batteries, still chirped. Found that the date on the detector was 12/2001 its 8/2010 as of this writing so I bought new compatible detectors which were shipped with batteries already in, put them up and they still chirped incessantly. I took all the batteries out that they were shipped with and changed to new batteries checking to make sure the contacts were all rightly lined up and so far two hours of quiet and counting.

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 20:13:56 +0000

I had to replace one of four detectors one year after our condo was built. It was badly contaminated with construction dust and debris. Since then, I replace the back up batteries regularly. Today, year four into the condo, they all began chirping once I replaced the batteries with new fresh batteries. I solved (I hope) the problem by vacuuming each one thoroughly and blowing them out as well. I also checked the contacts for the batteries making sure none of the contacts were “smashed in”. So far, four hours of quiet.

Also a hint, places like Home Depot have “contractor packs”, so you can get a complete set of fresh detectors when the time comes.

By: brian

brian — Tue, 18 May 2010 23:32:33 +0000

Also, its the plug in battery back up type

By: brian

brian — Tue, 18 May 2010 23:30:55 +0000

I am having the same problem with a CO detector that I bought last fall. I checked the manufactured date and is 4/2009. I doubt that this is at the end of its life barely 1 year old. Replaced batteries 3 times, still chirps. I have concluded that it is junk. Im calling the company’s 1800# tommorow but hope that we’re not sucking fumes in the mean time. This alarm only chirps, no loud repeats

By: Chuck

Chuck — Wed, 12 May 2010 14:19:27 +0000

My Kidde CO detector is hard wired and is 1 year old.
2 weeks ago, it begin to chirp intermittently once every 2-3 days.The chirp is always followed by a voice (unintelligible). The rhythm of the voice is like a radio voice transmission. It is normally a male voice. This AM, the chirp begin at 5:45 AM and each chirp is followed by a brief female voice transmission at intervals of approximately every 5-7 minutes. It finally stopped at 6:20 AM. How can I stop my Kidde CO monitor from picking up hand held radio transmission interference that wakes up the whole house? I hope you have a solution that I can personally perform such as an interference filter of some kind?

By: James

James — Sat, 08 May 2010 22:09:21 +0000

check the manual and the specific type of battery carefully. Mine takes a 9v battery but only the types specified in the manual stopped the chirping

By: Gerri

Gerri — Wed, 05 May 2010 21:34:08 +0000

I have hardwired battery back up smoke detectors. I replaced two with just battery smoke detectors. I replaced all batteries and the main area kept cherping. I moved all smoke detectors from house and cherping is somewhere in attic? They have hardwired a cherper somewhere? It is driving me crazy. I try flipping switches on circuit breaker and it will stop for awhile and them starts again. Always wants to do it in the middle of the night. Help.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 01:08:09 +0000

Marcia,

Wow, 12 years and you’ve never changed the battery? It’s possible that it has no battery but it’s actually a wired smoke detector. I once lived in a house that had one “wired” smoke detector (it was wired into a circuit in the house but had a backup battery) and another smoke detector that was completely powered by a battery. Battery powered smoke detectors shouldn’t be wired in sequence or wired at all :-) Your 12 year old smoke detector could be beeping because it has reached end of life or because the backup battery is low. Even though it’s a pain to get to, it’s probably a good idea to check it out sooner rather than later. It could be a safety issue.

By: Marcia

Marcia — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 16:38:00 +0000

My smoke alarm is chirping, and it is twelve years old. It is also 2 stories up and I can not reach it. I have never replaced the battery in twelve years. The light is still green. Now here is the strange part the smoke alarm in the hallway that I replace the battery regularly since I can reach it is doing the same thing. Are they wired in sequence?

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 23:57:34 +0000

Yona,

Hmm… It almost sounds like something wasn’t set properly on the smoke detector or the batteries they put in were already low. Again, many smoke detectors actually give off a regular chirp or beep when their batteries are low. It’s MEANT to be annoying so that you’ll change the batteries and not forget about it…